Search Results
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How to Close a Sale using Proof of Concept
- March 16, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
New salespeople have even greater challenges when they sell products and services that must be proven. Do they have to prove that they’re better, quicker, smarter, cooler or easier? Do they have to prove that their ROI is better? Do they have to prove a new technology or concept? Do they have a powerful, consistent way to do that?
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What Happens When You Try Too Hard?
- January 20, 2015
- Posted by: Kurlan & Associates, Inc.
- Categories: Monthly Tips, Strategy
If you are in an industry that has been impacted by the recession, and you are doing everything possible to continue to bring in revenue, then you are working twice as hard, twice as long and twice as smart. If not, you are probably failing right now. Twice as long is plenty obvious. Twice as smart means planning the strategies and tactics you’ll use for each opportunity. But what about twice as hard? Is that working twice as hard today and tomorrow or is that working twice as hard with every prospect?
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Topgrading Pros, Cons and Sales Assessments
- January 14, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Somehow, I got thrown into the middle of an internet disagreement between Brad Smart, author of Topgrading, and Bob Corlett, a blogger who calls himself The Staffing Adviser.
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Why CEOs/Presidents Tolerate Ineffective Sales Management
- January 14, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the comments on my article, The Validiation of the Sales Assessment Validation, mentioned the reluctance of CEOs and Presidents to redeploy or terminate ineffective sales managers. That topic deserves an article of its own, making 3 of my last 4 posts about ineffective sales managers. That will surely upset and perhaps eliminate a significant number of my regular readers.
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Can These 5 Keys Determine the Fate of Cold Calling?
- January 7, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The May issue of Top Sales Magazine is now available and in addition to my monthly article, this month’s issue is loaded with important reading on sales and selling.
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Social Selling – I’m a Proponent, Not a Detractor – Look at the Stats
- January 7, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The battle that I inadvertently started with this post moved here where it took on a life of its own. As of this writing, there were 36 comments, some more pointed than others. Gerhard Gschwandtner added this post to the ongoing discussion. Earlier this week, I wrote this post to address most of the confusion that’s out there. Yesterday, this post appeared on the Sales Thought Leaders Blog to add fuel to the fire.
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Key to Significantly Improve Sales Training Results
- January 6, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Before we discuss how to improve sales training, a quick promo for the latest and greatest taking place over at the ever-improving Top Sales World. The June issue of Top Sales Magazine has been published and you can download it here.
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Why You Must Understand This about Desire for Sales Success
- August 20, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One of the most frequent questions we get from clients has to do with the second most important finding on Objective Management Group’s (OMG) sales and sales management evaluations. “This is one of my top salespeople – how can she possibly lack Desire for sales success?”
It’s a great question and I hope to explain it fully here.
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Key to Significantly Improve Sales Training Results
- May 28, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The best players, getting the advanced instruction on the travel teams, improve the most. Those same kids, on their regular season team, learn almost nothing new and aren’t challenged or pushed. Practice, and sometimes even the games, can be so boring for them that they don’t play their very best.
Translation from Baseball to Selling
If we translate all of that baseball to selling, the only two things that change are the activity and the age of the people being coached and trained.
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Can These 5 Keys Determine the Fate of Cold Calling?
- May 7, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
When marketers and writers tell us that cold calling is dead, they never remember to qualify what they are trying to sell us. The amount of death in cold calling is dependent on a number of variables that never seem to be discussed. If we take a good hard look at these variables, we can see that taking a broad brush stroke to cold calling is a mistake: